"IN THE GLOAMING."

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 73, 28 March 1939, Page 15

"IN THE GLOAMING."

WIDOW IS WAITING. COMPOSED FAMOUS TUNE. LOVE GIFT TO HUSBAND. (By Air Mail.) LONDON. .March 4. In a quiet, old-world house in Cheshani Street, Belgravia, a frail, whitehaired little lady in a dainty bed jacket lies amid piles of birthday greetings which she reads and re-reads, humming a famous tune to herself in a voice that is still musical and sweet. Many of the birthday messages mention the tune the little old lady hums to herself. Its fame has gone round the world since she composed it more than GO years ago. Yon know it. It is called "In the Gloaming.'' Lady Arthur Hill, who composed it, was 90 the other day. The personal maid who has tended her for many years told a reporter: "Her ladyship spent her birthday resting quietly. She did not give a party or a celebration of any kind. She is seldom able to get up these days, and in any case, she says, she would rather forget all about birthdays now." But Lady Arthur Hill's friends would not let her forget the occasion. . . and as she lay in her still London room restaurant orchestras were playing her famous tune in a score of cities where English is spoken. "They Still Sing It."

Yon remember the words of "In the Gloaming," poignant ballad of Victorian days that has survived the cynicism of post-war years. Families, "going Victorian" as fashion dictates, sing the first verse throbbingly, as people sang it 20 years before the Boer War. In the gloaming, oh, my darling, when the lights lire dim and low. And the quiet shadows fulling. Softly come and softly go: When the winds are sobbing faintly With a gentle, unknown woe. Will you think of me and love me As you did once, long ago? The words were written by Meta Orred, a girl relative of beautiful, brilliant Annie Fortescue-Harrison, as Lady Hill was before her marriage. Very few now know that the song records both a love tragedy—and a happy romance. Meta Orred had a love drama in her life in those far-off Victorian days. The full story cannot be told, because, though Meta Orred is dead, other figures in the romance are still living. But Meta told the story in the poignant second verse, which ends: For my heart was crushed with longing— What had been could never be: It was best to leave you thus, dear — Best for you, and best for me. "Just for Fun." Meta Orred gave the poem she had written to young Annie FortescueHarrision. Annie, lovely debutante of the '70's, was happy. Her marriage to debonair Lord Arthur Hill, second son of the fourth Marquess of Downshire, was approaching. Musician and composer since she was a girl of fourteen, she set the words to music, "Just for fun,'' little dreaming that tragedy and joy together would give the world a musical best-seller. Annie Fortescue-Harrison and Lord Arthur Hill—who for ten years was Comptroller to Queen Victoria's household —were married almost simultaneously witli the publication of the song. The music was Lady Arthur's love sift to her bridegroom. He admired it, Teamed to sing it, and had the tune reset as the march of the regiment he commanded, the old 2nd Middlesex! Artillery. Young Lady Hill watched her husband proudly on the parade ground as the regimental band played the tune she had written . . . Lord Arthur Hill died in 1931. They i had been married for 54 years. Now, while the wireless in her room some--1 times plays her famous tune, his bride i waits "in the gloaming."